Friday Nudity News

Faux-serious academic quote of the day, from an article titled (rather ungramatically) "Revealing photos are becoming passe?"

"I do think that general attitudes about nudity are becoming more relaxed, but these changes take time, which is why there's still mixed responses," said Paul Levinson, communication and media professor at Fordham University.

"We as a society are finally growing up and it's a healthy thing," he said....

"There's no doubt about it. The Web for the last 10 years, has made more nudity available," Levinson said. "I predict in the next few years, the FCC will be put in its proper place and nudity will be the norm," he said.

reason gets nekkid here and here.

Via Fark 

Comments

Adam W. | September 14, 2007, 4:38pm | #

""While filling in a survey, people will always check off with one hand that there's too much sex and violence in the media, while using the other hand to search for that kind of material."

But don't they need one hand to you know?

BD | September 14, 2007, 4:39pm | #

00=====D

Wow! I feel at once so free and grown up!!

Fluffy | September 14, 2007, 4:45pm | #

Hey! There's no nudity at all at those links! What a gyp.

J sub D | September 14, 2007, 4:47pm | #

What? No pictures? What about truth in headlining?

DB | September 14, 2007, 4:49pm | #

BD: I prefer 8===D

sage | September 14, 2007, 4:50pm | #

OT: Can someone link me to the post where the hit&run drinking game rules were put up? Today's as good a day as any to start.

Jonathan Hohensee | September 14, 2007, 4:53pm | #

I think that the "Bleeding Into the Mainstream" article in this month's Reason is closer to home. Standards of dress will become more and more relaxed, but most people will be middle-in-the-road.
Is shame of nudity society based?

J sub D | September 14, 2007, 4:59pm | #

Seriously, the religious right has got to be somewhat chagrined by this trend in the nation. For reasons that escape me, western religions have historically treated the human body and human sexuality as things to be ashamed of. Xians, Jews, and Muslims have an almost pathological denial about this most basic biological function. Why are they like that? I wish I had the answer, but I don't. There is no need to point out the offshoot sects that differ as these are considered cults by the three religions mentioned. Any insight to this (my opinion) really weird behaviour would be appreciated.

Now, Back to the nudie jokes!

proud to be a merkin | September 14, 2007, 5:03pm | #

I'm generally not a prude, but I'd prefer if women weren't always nude. It would be like celebrating Christmas with non-wrapped toys.

Warty | September 14, 2007, 5:04pm | #

||=================D
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00

Brandybuck | September 14, 2007, 5:05pm | #

Nudity the norm? Heaven forbid! Nudity should be restricted to the beautiful (or at least the firm and perky). The last thing I want to see are the sunburned breasts of a sixty year old hippy who never bothered to wear a bra during her life.

Brandybuck | September 14, 2007, 5:07pm | #

...or the hairy sagging buttocks of her hypenated-husband.

J sub D | September 14, 2007, 5:07pm | #

Nudity the norm? Heaven forbid! Nudity should be restricted to the beautiful (or at least the firm and perky). The last thing I want to see are the sunburned breasts of a sixty year old hippy who never bothered to wear a bra during her life.

Just imagine Grandma getting out of the tub. Oh, the humanity!

ChicagoTom | September 14, 2007, 5:10pm | #

Xians, Jews, and Muslims have an almost pathological denial about this most basic biological function

And yet most predominantly Christian nations in Europe have much more tolerance for nudity in their media and on their beaches etc.

So why is the USA so prudish about those things?

bigbigslacker | September 14, 2007, 5:17pm | #

I was going to post that I don't see this happening with a President Clinton, but then I did some lookin. It seems she isn't anti-porn (not that nudity is porn). I expected she might, being a feminists of sorts, be against porn. (Not that it makes sense for feminists to be against taking advantage of mens' weaknesses, but many seem to be of that mindset) Seems I was just suffering from Joe's liberal-in-your-head disease...

J sub D | September 14, 2007, 5:18pm | #

And yet most predominantly Christian nations in Europe have much more tolerance for nudity in their media and on their beaches etc.

So why is the USA so prudish about those things?

It just might be that the Europeans are ahead of us socially on this one. I haven't seen any European nations go to hell in a handbasket because of relaxed nudity taboos. Ten years down the road, who knows?

Cesar | September 14, 2007, 5:28pm | #

It just might be that the Europeans are ahead of us socially on this one. I haven't seen any European nations go to hell in a handbasket because of relaxed nudity taboos. Ten years down the road, who knows?

Hey, I thought they were under sharia law now!!

Cesar | September 14, 2007, 5:29pm | #

They're ahead of us socially on sex, but way behind in violence. Half the stuff shown on cable TV and in our videogames would be censored in Germany.

Timothy | September 14, 2007, 5:44pm | #

They're ahead of us socially on sex, but way behind in violence. Half the stuff shown on cable TV and in our videogames would be censored in Germany.

And we all know it's not a party without both!

prisoner9352641 | September 14, 2007, 5:48pm | #

J sub D
"Just imagine Grandma getting out of the tub. Oh, the humanity!"

I am having a hard time doing this as I've not met your granny. Please post pics.

TLB | September 14, 2007, 5:59pm | #

One good thing about a Libertarian government: there wouldn't be an FCC in the first place, and TV networks could show anything they wanted, with hardcore XXXXX-rated flicks following Disney movies if the network wanted to.

P.S. Vote Libertarian!

Isaac Bartram | September 14, 2007, 6:30pm | #

"Bambi and Thumper: The Untold Story"

Isn't that the kind of thing Santorum was trying to warn us about? :)

thoreau | September 14, 2007, 6:49pm | #

For once, LoneWacko and I agree on something: FCC abolition is a damn good reason to vote LP!

BakedPenguin | September 14, 2007, 7:09pm | #

It seems she isn't anti-porn (not that nudity is porn).

I don't think she gives a shit about it one way or the other. However, if she could get 100 more votes by supporting a ban on porn than by not supporting it, she would be happy to. She is, like most politicians, a fucking whore who will sell out anyone and anything to get elected or re-elected.

Dirty Frank | September 14, 2007, 7:17pm | #

BD: I prefer 8===D

I prefer 8====D O-:

DB | September 14, 2007, 7:27pm | #

Uh huh. What about 8====D )*( ?

J sub D | September 14, 2007, 8:00pm | #

J sub D
"Just imagine Grandma getting out of the tub. Oh, the humanity!"

I am having a hard time doing this as I've not met your granny. Please post pics.

prisoner9352641,
I googled nude grannies to try to find something appropriate. All i can say is (shaking head slowly) shit, there's some weird folks out there. I just couldn't, in good conscience, direct you to the websites presented. The cruel and unusual punishment provision of the eighth amendment applies here. Hell, I'm probably scarred for life.

jtuf | September 14, 2007, 8:10pm | #

Even compared to Quebec, the US seems rather demure. I once visited a science museum in Quebec. The exhibit on Spring time activities was more frank than any in the US.

M | September 14, 2007, 8:35pm | #

titled (rather ungramatically) "Revealing photos are becoming passe?"

She posts on shabbos almost and on rosh hashanah and still she doesn't know from Yiddish syntax? Is a shande far de goyim!

Ruthless | September 14, 2007, 8:56pm | #

Nixon had to be the one going to China.
It had to be a woman posting about nudity on H&R.
(Where can I find the additional images of Vanessa Hudgens? I found the first, and became addicted.)
Moving right along...

This post reminds me of the atheist group of which I'm a member:
Theoretically we favor nudity, but we are such a bunch of wrinkly ole fuddy-duddys. You gotta love us... probably not.
... another one of the Helleresque corners of existence.
Eh wot?
(A thousand pardons "M" for stepping on your New Year celebrations.)

M | September 14, 2007, 9:20pm | #

A thousand pardons "M" for stepping on your New Year celebrations.

So they're my celebrations, and I'm breaking the Fourth Commandment?

Anyway, wot? Ruthless = Katherine Mangu-Ward?

G. K. Chesterton | September 14, 2007, 11:03pm | #

For reasons that escape me, western religions have historically treated the human body and human sexuality as things to be ashamed of.

What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago.

The Wine Commonsewer | September 15, 2007, 12:57am | #

As my Aunt Jeanne used to say everything was just fine until sex reared it's ugly head

Paul Levinson | September 15, 2007, 1:15am | #

Glad you enjoyed or were otherwise moved by my Reuters interview, folks.

About the FCC, I'll just clarify and say: I want these marauders on the Constitution run out of town, and I don't much if they leave clothed or naked...

prolefeed | September 15, 2007, 4:26am | #

She is, like most politicians, a fucking whore who will sell out anyone and anything to get elected or re-elected.

Including condemning whores.

| September 15, 2007, 5:31am | #

Did someone just call someone a "condemning whore"?

bigbigslacker | September 15, 2007, 11:57am | #

In Libertopia, how would we address the issues FCC part 15 B handles today? Is the new policy going to be "Too bad, so sad"?

Mike Laursen | September 15, 2007, 2:08pm | #

Aaagh! I just lost my answer to your FCC part 15 B question!

Mike Laursen | September 15, 2007, 2:12pm | #

OK, trying this again. I'm not a libertopian libertarian, but I'll answer just for the fun of it:

Answer, part 1: You could sue your neighbor in civil court. Or you could negotiate an agreement with your neighbor. Your strategy for dealing with the conflict would depend on who lived there first, what you both have at stake, other neighbors that are involved, etc.

Answer, part 2: Technology. With digital computing and spread spectrum, it is no longer necessary to divvy up the radio spectrum into broadcast bands. Plus, the creativity unleashed by a truly free market would lead to new solutions we haven't even thought of.

How'd I do?

J sub D | September 15, 2007, 2:52pm | #

There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication.

Oh, poppycock! Sex is, unless your making babies, or raping, merely recreation. Amazingly enough, I and billions of others have managed to place sexual activity and desires in perspective. It's not evil. it's not "spiritual", it's fun!

Procreation is serious business, yes. But, flirting, teasing, foreplay, intercourse and orgasm, are part of a grand fun game that adults play. That is, adults that have not been sexually stunted by religious institutions or frustrated garegivers, enjoy the hell out of the whole shebang.

In my younger days I was a slut. No, I don't feel guilty about it, I don't regret it for one minute. As a wise man once penned,

And that's why birds do it
bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

I've heard that lizards and frogs do it
Layin' on a rock
They say that roosters do it
With a doodle and cock

Some Argentines, without means do it
I hear even Boston beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

FYI, Cole Porter wasn't talking about falling in love here.

f'ing powerhouse | September 15, 2007, 4:56pm | #

Right on J sub D! I've had lost count of the partners spanning the last 25 years. All I have to say is I'm still happy to sleep with any reasonably good-looking women that is looking to get laid and for all the crap the religionists throw, I still manage an active sex-life out of wedlock with plenty of so-called 'god-fearing' women. It's been a blast. (I was once referred to as "Satan", but that's another story for another time!)

Stevo Darkly | September 15, 2007, 7:11pm | #

I did a Google image search for "Vanessa Hudgens" and I think I've just sprung a love-leak!

Pat | September 15, 2007, 7:38pm | #

For the politics file:

End the Drug War Say More Elected Politicians

Local elected politicians across America are coming to see the dysfunctional reality and stand up for real solutions to the problems caused by the war on drugs.

This week the Examiner.com of Washington, D.C. reports in a story titled "City councilman pushes to end war on drugs" that:

"Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young is taking his war against the “war on drugs” one step farther.

On Monday, Young said he will introduce a resolution seeking a hearing — with testimony from the Baltimore Police Department and the city Health Department — to open a dialogue on what he said is a failed strategy against illegal drugs."

Libertarian Party Outreach | September 15, 2007, 8:20pm | #

Guys:

I thought I'd just drop in to remind everyone to "soft soap" our true Libertarian platform lest it drive our percentages even lower. There's a time and there's a place, and neither of those are until Michael Badnarik is president. Yes, many Libertarians may be looking forward to complete freedom, with even PCP being freely available to all who demand it and with ads for porn appearing on the Disney Channel. But, let's just keep that under our hats for now. Don't want to scare the Xians or anything.

Cesar | September 15, 2007, 10:15pm | #

ads for porn appearing on the Disney Channel

They already pretty much do.

crimethink | September 15, 2007, 10:45pm | #

J sub D,

The creatures Mr Porter mentions also kill each other and some even kill their own offspring. The idea that we should tailor our morality to be more like that of [nonhuman] animals is pretty ludicrous. Then again, it doesn't surprise me that people are willing to accept all kinds of nonsense if it justifies them doing what they feel like doing anyway.

GKC | September 15, 2007, 10:51pm | #

Nothing could purge this obsession but a religion that was literally unearthly. It was no good telling such people to have a natural religion full of stars and flowers; there was not a flower or even a star that had not been stained. They had to go into the desert where they could find no flowers or even into the cavern where they could see no stars. Into that desert and that cavern the highest human intellect entered for some four centuries; and it was the very wisest thing it could do. Nothing but the stark supernatural stood up for its salvation; if God could not save it, certainly the gods could not. The early Church called the gods of paganism devils; and the Early Church was perfectly right. Whatever natural religion may have had to do with their beginnings, nothing but fiends now inhabited those hollow shrines. Pan was nothing but panic. Venus was nothing but venereal vice. I do not mean for a moment, of course, that all the individual pagans were of this character even to the end; but it was as individuals that they differed from it. Nothing distinguishes paganism from Christianity so clearly as the fact that the individual thing called philosophy had little or nothing to do with the social thing called religion. Anyhow it was no good to preach natural religion to people to whom nature had grown as unnatural as any religion. They knew much better than we do what was the matter with them and what sort of demons at once tempted and tormented them; and they wrote across that great space of history the text; "This sort goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

bigbigslacker | September 16, 2007, 1:06pm | #

Mike L,under the scenario described in part 1 of your answer you sue your neighbor for continuing to operate a device that is interfering with devices in your home. So....you are really suing because his device apparently doesn't meet existing FCC part 15 B emissions limits (and probably exceeds them badly). The existing system would seem to be better. It isn't onerous or unlibertarian, despite having the ugly "FCC" TLA attached to it. You test your product yourself or have it tested for you by competent lab, stash your passing report in a file, and self-declare compliance and apply the FCC Home and Office text to the product label. Now you are ready to sell your product, and everyone is happy. Government regulation only occurs when it is found a company is selling a "FCC compliant" product that isn't. Either way (the FCC or lawsuit route) we still have part B, even if we call it something else or adjust the limit lines a bit. In the free market, a reputable store, say Wal-mart, is not going to sell devices that are likely to lead to merchandise returns and lawsuits. Lacking of the existence of FCC part 15, major retailers and trade associations would adopt industry standards that are equivalent to FCC part 15 B in order to protect their own interests. Flea markets and garage shops would be the revenue source for the court system.

Removing central regulation for intentional radiators (part 2 in your reply) IMO would be a total mess. Remember back when CB radios were popular in cars (or at all)? Every so often your TV would whack out because someone nearby fired up their (FCC illegal) power amp so they could talk to people in other state. That would become the norm, only worse because back then the people doing that were at least trying to broadcast on the right frequency. Industry could adopt their own set of regulations and come up with a marking that the industry group owns - kinda like wifi certification or product safety certification with CSA, ETL, TUV, and UL marks (insert trademark symbols here). In that scenario you sue if someone applies your industry mark that means "my product passes" and the product doesn't actually pass. We still have just replaced A with B, with B being equal to A. Whatever...enough of this FCC talk (I'm starting to feel like I'm at work)

One interesting tidbit in the wide world of product regulation is conformity testing in Europe. You apply the CE mark to your product and you are good to go for the whole continent. Its not always quite that simple, but it is easier than product acceptance in the communist States of America, Canadadada, and Mexishithole. That's what I like about Europe...they are such Libertarian progressives. I know, "thems fightin words!"

hale | September 16, 2007, 1:53pm | #

The creatures Mr Porter mentions also kill each other and some even kill their own offspring. The idea that we should tailor our morality to be more like that of [nonhuman] animals is pretty ludicrous.

I don't think anybody seriously thought quoting a Cole Porter song was meant to be a philosophical argument, but since you (inadvertently?) raised the issue, I'll give it a punt.

The problem with looking to "nature" for moral answers is always the same - is versus ought, etc., plus the inability to effectively draw a line between what is natural and what just happens. One must either become a complete fatalist or resort to singling out "unnatural" influences, thereby coming to rely on an incomplete picture of nature itself. This is an unacceptable choice, so we should abandon moral naturalism and "tailor our morality" to whatever suits us, which brings us back to:

Some people are afraid that if sex is brought into the public and treated as a morally-neutral thing, the consequences for society will be the elimination of historical safeguards (viz. monogamy, among others) against brutal sexual competition and subsequent elimination of the "softer" romantic feelings. Others believe that an attitude of sex-without-sin will result in a breakdown of all morality, ending in a lawless society where theft and murder are regarded as equally acceptable.

To those making the first argument, I can only respond that I doubt this to be in the human character. If we can't look to rats for our sexual morality, then we doubly cannot look to them for an idea of what sexual competition looks like among our species. We're a species with a long gestation cycle and offspring that require a huge amount of effort to make viable, which gives us an unusual concern with the bond between parents and offspring. We're also a species that loves inventing laws and institutions in order to feel more secure and make society more convenient. I think that the institution of monogamy has been one such very convenient compromise between the reproductive strategies of the sexes; I wouldn't expect it, or the "softer" feelings associated with it, to go anywhere just because attitudes about the fundamental moral value of sex change.

As for the second argument - the post-apocalypse scenario - I can only attempt to infer that what is being proposed is that shame about sex is the engine of all moral contrition. Its a seductive idea; Freud and many of his spiritual successors (Reich, for example) probably enjoyed the hell out of it. I mean, if sex is the pivot of the psyche - that is, the thing around which the human unconscious is organized - then why not also make it the thing around which the social unconscious is organized into culture itself? Obviously, then, sexual shame becomes isomorphic to all forms of shame. Remove one and all others, which inherit their characteristics from it, will be gone as well. ... In my opinion, this is all just a bit too mystical and poorly-supported, which is the problem with Freudian theory in general. To proponents of this argument, I reply that making sex an analogue for all human morality we are insulting the gravity of human morality and sacrificing a greater value (the notion of human beings as dignified) to a lesser one (modes of propriety that are, regardless of any other characteristic about them, proven to be transient and unstable).

hale | September 16, 2007, 1:54pm | #

ahh crap, damn tags

Mike Laursen | September 16, 2007, 2:10pm | #

Yikes, bigbigslacker, I just thought you were asking a question, not setting me up. Like I said I'm not a libertopian, anyway.

J sub D | September 16, 2007, 4:45pm | #

The creatures Mr Porter mentions also kill each other and some even kill their own offspring. The idea that we should tailor our morality to be more like that of [nonhuman] animals is pretty ludicrous.

As opposed to God fearing theists. Read the news sometime. And as far as religon based morality goes, READ YOUR HOLY BOOK(S)! sometime. Get back to me on which parts don't apply or don't mean what they say. I like the genocidal parts the best.

ktc2 | September 16, 2007, 5:52pm | #

Nudity = Good
Religion = Evil

Ruthless | September 16, 2007, 7:10pm | #

Pat,
Don't get hopes too high for Baltimore.
One of the books in my bookshelf I'm proudest of is Sam Staley's "Drug Policy and the Decline of American Cities." It was published in 1992. I was one of many who helped Sam proofread it.
The forward was by Kurt L. Schmoke, Mayor of Baltimore, who, supposedly understood what Sam was saying.
What is this? 2007?